McCain Fights Proposed Medicare Cuts in Health Bill

The health-care debate is causing some strange political switcheroos. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), previously had voted against adding a new prescription drug benefit to Medicare and has championed spending cuts to the program. Now, he’s opposing cuts proposed by Democrats as part of their sweeping health-care bill.

McCain, whose home state of Arizona is home to many seniors, is offering an amendment that would eliminate the proposed cuts to Medicare, totaling nearly $500 billion over 10 years, that Democrats are proposing to help finance an expansion of health care to those under 65.

Some Republicans weren’t enthusiastic about creating Medicare back in the mid-1960s, fearing excessive government involvement in health care, and have looked for ways to rein it in ever since. Now, many Republicans say they are defending the program against what they say are attempts to gut it, a position once championed by, um, Democrats.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele kicked off this line of argument in a Washington Post opinion article in August. On Monday, McCain said on the Senate floor that Democrats wanted to cut the “rightful benefits that our people have earned.” He added: “These are not attainable cuts without eventually rationing health care in America.”

Democrats argue that many of the proposed cuts to Medicare would just trim the program’s growth rate and seek to eliminate waste. They noted that McCain, a long-time budget hawk, had himself proposed spending cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor, during his 2008 run for the White House.

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